


A Great and Noble Task

by Mandibles



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anonymous Sex, Bathing/Washing, Biting, Blindfolds, Church Sex, Cock & Ball Torture, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, FE3H Kinkmeme, Foot Fetish, Foot Jobs, Forced Feminization, Gang Rape, Intercrural Sex, M/M, No Kink Negotiation, Non-Consensual Tickling, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pillory, Public Humiliation, Public Sex, Public Use, Religious Content, Rimming, Slut Shaming, Verbal Humiliation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:15:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25626544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandibles/pseuds/Mandibles
Summary: For the charge of blasphemy, Lorenz agrees to day and night in the pillory, at the mercy of the people. What's worse is he starts tolikeit.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Claude von Riegan, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Ignatz Victor, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Mercedes von Martritz, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Others, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Seteth (Fire Emblem), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Lorenz Hellman Gloucester
Comments: 25
Kudos: 111





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sup! This is becoming bigger than I anticipated so I'm posting separate chapters. Also I haven't written proper fic since 2014 so uhhhhhhhh
> 
> Based on this fe3hkinkmeme prompt:
> 
> One of Garreg Mach’s prouder male students (so someone like Ferdinand or Lorenz) accidentally breaks an archaic monastery rule that no one even knew about til Seteth scolds them. They confidently agree to accept their punishment thinking it will be extra stable duty or something. However because it’s an old law it also has an old penalty back from when the church was more into, ahem, “punishing” sinners in more creative ways. The character is stuck in a reverse glory hole, pantsless and given to the monastery population for a day and night. They’re blindfolded and can only tell the identities of the visitors if they talk to them.
> 
> Cue multiple people gleefully taking the opportunity to take this proud student down a few pegs. A lot of the Garreg Mach residents have been waiting for a chance like this. The student get spanked, pinched, slapped, whipped, dildoed and of course fucked within an inch of their lives!
> 
> Bonus: By the end of the day the student is humiliated and exhausted but also horrified at how turned on they are by the whole ordeal. They’ve come so many times over the course of the day it’s obscene and now they’re just hanging there dripping and totally fucked out. When the last visitor makes use of them, they can’t help breaking down shamelessly moaning and begging for it like a cockslut in heat. Absolutely no one is ever going to let them forget this ever.

“Community service,” Lorenz echoes, shoulders easing.

True, it sounds an awful lot like dirty work—tugging weeds and shoveling dung were never his favorite tasks—but it must be better than the whirlwind of punishments his mind has cooked up since Seteth boxed his ears the day before. Community service seems lax for the charge of blasphemy.

So he finds it easy to dip his head and declare, “Absolutely. I humbly accept this punishment and thank you for your mercy.”

A snort startles him from his bow. But Seteth’s face betrays no mirth when he looks, only the same sharp disappointment that drew Lorenz’ shoulders up and tight in the first place.

“Do not make light of your transgression, Gloucester.”

Lorenz pales. “O-Of course not! Forgive me, I only meant—”

“It is the Goddess’ mercy you should seek.” Seteth stands, hands splayed on his desk. “And the Goddess’ mercy you shall earn, through community service. From the first bell to the last.”

Lorenz swallows. He understands now why he was summoned so early, sky still dark and the monastery slumbering. Oh, the hours he wasted tossing and turning and fretting—

“You will have no breaks,” continues Seteth. “None. I will come by with food and water at mealtimes. Remember: you will act before the eyes of the Goddess. I expect you to perform for all as you would for Her. Is this understood?”

“I—” Perform? What is he meant to perform? And for so long, without pause? What of… other breaks? A heavy coldness sinks Lorenz’s stomach to his toes; he wipes his damp palms on his blazer. “Forgive my ignorance, sir, but I must ask: what does community service entail?”

Seteth seems to hesitate, forehead creased. Then he draws out a long, dark cloth and sighs.

“Please close your eyes.”

The pillory drops shut with a clunk. Lorenz, blind and trapped, gasps when it does.

Madness, he thinks. Absolute madness.

He, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, a true noble of the Alliance, will do what is expected of him and complete his service. Of that there is no doubt. He will endure this punishment just as anyone who has earned it should.

But is it truly necessary? He has been thoroughly reprimanded and has expressed the proper amount of remorse. What more can be done? What good will come of leaving him to the mercy of—of commoners and nobles and soldiers alike? To be a receptable for whatever punishment they deem him worthy of, unable to tell the cruel hand of a friend from the crueler one of a foe.

Madness.

Lorenz bites his lips when his feet are pulled free from his boots. He has the sudden urge to kick but tempers it. Even as his disciplinarian strips him, the man who damned him to service, Lorenz cannot help but find kindness in Seteth still.

Because it is raining outside; Lorenz remembers the coolness of it against his face when they left the sanity and safety of the office. But here, wherever he has been led, his bare feet touch blessedly dry stone.

“The first bell will ring soon,” comes Seteth’s voice from behind. Lorenz’s stomach lurches as Seteth starts at his belt, working it free from his hips in quick tugs. It clatters to the floor. “When it does, your body will no longer your own. It will belong to the Goddess; you will belong to her.”

The early morning chills Lorenz’s backside, his thighs. Blood burns his face when Seteth shoves his trousers and underclothes to his ankles then off entirely, his limp cock falling free. Here he is, he thinks, breath catching, dressed only in his shirt, bared where it matters most. To think that anyone could do what they please with him, and so easily…

“Oh!” he blurts, only to feel stupid for it. He knows the hand that settles between his shoulder blades.

“Lorenz,” Seteth says, firm but not unkind. “Are you prepared?”

The question echoes his words from earlier, when Lorenz finally allowed the blindfold to be tied. _You will be hurt_ , Seteth had said. _You will be hurt and touched and used and that will be justice_.

“Who could prepare for this?” The words bubble, threaten to burst from his chest. “This is too much! This is unfair!” He wants to cry and kick and scream his curses and damnations.

But he doesn’t.

He closes his eyes against the darkness and licks his lips. He says instead, “Of course. I will do what must be done,” and prides himself in the way his words don’t falter.

Seteth keeps his silence in the wake of his answer, his fingers idly trailing down Lorenz’s back, only the cotton shirt separating him from skin. Then the hand finally rests an icy brand on the small of his back.

Distantly, a bell rings.

And Lorenz _shudders_.

“Lorenz,” murmurs Seteth, “I cannot absolve you of your sins, not in this. Only She can do that.” There’s a sigh. “But I can offer you a small mercy.”

“I—” Lorenz’s chest pounds. “I—”

“I promise this is no more than a kindness. Others may not offer the same.”

And they won’t, Lorenz knows. He’s not foolish enough to think he’s well-liked at this school. He notices the side-eyes sent his way, the words exchanged when he passes, the laughs at his expense. Malice is all he expects when he’s here, blinded, trussed up like a bird for a feast, and he won’t even be able to put a face to the cruelty.

But he knows the hands touching him now, sure and firm, and knows no true harm will come from them. If there is only one moment of gentleness today, it will be this.

So it’s, “Please,” Lorenz whispers, fingers curling into wood, “Whatever mercy you are willing to give, I accept.”

Quick and without warning, the hands shift and Lorenz gasps, balks at the new touch. Thumbs roughly spread his cheeks, exposing the most shameful part of him to the holiest man in the monastery.

“Oh, oh—” _Goddess_ , he nearly squeaks, but further blasphemy won’t save him now. “Wait wait wait!”

Seteth shushes him. “Do not be afraid. I will be quick.” He says this with his breath hot and damp and too close to _there_ and—

Heat streaks through Lorenz. “Wait! Oh no. No no no no no—”

He sucks a breath at the first touch of wetness, squirms against the unyielding bonds of the pillory.

“Haaah,” he gasps, panic rattling his ribcage. Madness, he thinks again, a millionth time, because that is Seteth’s tongue that sends shivers racing up his arching spine, has him curling his toes and fists. Even so, Seteth conducts himself with a business-like efficiency, worming past the tight ring of muscle with a moist tongue and the blunt press of something thicker. Saliva crawls down from where Seteth’s mouth works, over Lorenz’s sac and cock.

He can’t say which is more humiliating: the wet, sucking noise that bursts between his cheeks or the squeal two breaching fingers squeeze out of him.

“O-Oh! There you are, Archbishop.”

No, it’s the call of a woman’s voice that makes him want to _die_.

Worse, Seteth takes his time to pull away from Lorenz’s hole, and he does with another suckling sound. His fingers still twist in, too dry and too thick and too much. Lorenz clenches his eyes shut, frustrated tears leaking down his flushed face.

He wonders if Seteth wipes his mouth before he speaks, or if his face is still slick.

“Ah, good morning. Forgive me, we were meant to meet this morning, weren’t we?”

“Yes,” the monk says at length, “But I understand if something else has come up—”

“That isn’t necessary.” Lorenz winces when the fingers draw out of him. “Give me one moment. I will be with you shortly.”

Seteth waits for her footsteps to fade before his tongue finds Lorenz’s asshole again, soothing the hurts with quick, bold thrusts. Lorenz barely appreciates the touch before Seteth pulls back, removes himself entirely. The cool air is a relief he doesn’t expect, and he exhales a long, bated breath.

“I will return after morning service with your breakfast,” Seteth declares, sounding more like the Archbishop of the Church of Seiros than the man whose fingers had been knuckle-deep in Lorenz’s backside. His voice does become softer when he says, “I am sorry I couldn’t do more.”

Well-breeding spurs Lorenz’s tongue. “I thank you for your generosity.”

A mirthless snort answers him, punctuated by retreating footsteps.

In the silence, Lorenz closes his eyes and urges his knees to not buckle. For now he is alone and his service truly begins.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah ha, my computer has been down for the past couple days, so 90% of this was written on my phone. ✌🏾

The minutes stretch. The blindfold dries all tears and the darkness becomes a yawning chasm.

Lorenz wakes again in a panic.

There’s no telling how much time has passed since the first bell, though Seteth has yet to return with breakfast. Once his hands stop shaking, Lorenz allows himself to hope his day will carry on this way, in quiet and boredom. Perhaps there will be the occasional titter or jab thrown his way, but that isn’t too far from the norm. And what—what Seteth did he can set aside as an unfortunate event done out of kindness. Interactions beyond today are sure to be uncomfortable but manageable.

He can move on from this. And he wants to.

…However.

Something roils in him, too dense, too difficult to name. Of course he doesn’t wish to face further indignity—what sane man would? But he can’t deny the solitude disappoints him.

Here is Lorenz Hell Gloucester, strung up and nude in offering to the masses. Prepared to be _despoiled_. There should be scandal! Vicious delight amongst the common people, outrage amongst nobles! Truth be told, he expected a mob to be formed already, no matter the hour, all jeers and chatter and the shuffling of too many feet. Not this oppressive silence that threatens to swallow him whole. To think that on this, the worst day of his life, every student and teacher and knight and monk has chosen to sleep in, as if his sacrifice isn’t noteworthy.

As if he’s insignificant.

He’s exhausted. He’s hungry. He’s sore. He’s endured Seteth’s tongue of all things. None of that is insignificant!

Temper fired, Lorenz rattles in his stocks, but the flame douses quick at the groan of large doors. And the shuffling of too many feet. And the sudden burst of chatter. And the single whispered, “Look at that!” garbled by laughter. Life brackets him from all sides, stirring the air the around him, many conversations melding into a single hum of sound.

Lorenz cowers.

Fool. He’s a fool. An absolute, goddamned fool. A—

It’s an age before the room settles, silence rolling over the crowd in a wave. But the peace is short-lived, replaced by another wall of sound.

Before, the choir begins to sing. Behind him, other voices lift.

He knows the hymn. He’s sung it enough during morning service.

He’s in the damned chapel.

Lorenz’s legs buckle but he inhales when a sharp pain startles him upright, apart. Another on the inside of his thigh makes his toes curl and, Goddess help him, he’s being _pinched_. By two hands, three, five. The curious things squeeze and rub and just once—“Ah!”—pain sparks from a firm slap. He blinks away tears, heat searing his face, but no one points out the outburst, no one laughs.

Instead music swells around him. His head spins.

Any other morning he’d be amongst them. He often accompanies Professor Byleth for choir practice and, occasionally, a service. How it is to want to shrink and vanish rather that raise his voice above all others. Well, he certainly stands out now, doesn’t he?

The hymn ends on a familiar mournful note and the hands fade away. All except one, warmly cupping a cheek. It’s only once Seteth begins to preach, thunderous and far off, that Lorenz realizes it’s not the Archbishop who grasps him. That comes at no relief; he’s still being touched and by a stranger.

Sharp pricks make Lorenz flinch. “W-Wait, don’t—”

“Pay attention,” a girl says airily. “This is for your benefit after all.

Lorenz’s blood goes cold.

“Although we could all benefit from your mistake, Lorenz,” Mercedes continues, idly running her nails over the backs of his thighs. “As a cautionary tale.”

Lorenz doesn’t respond, though he isn’t sure he’s meant to. He doesn’t listen either, Seteth’s sermon a dull noise beyond the blood roaring in his ears. His focus narrows to the scratching that lances electricity though him, the tickle of Mercedes’ clothes when she draws close. See, Mercedes has always been a vocal critic of his, and though he doesn’t quite understand her ire, he never dismisses her words.

Because, ah, well, he has always found her quite lovely in fact and has considered more than once that if she weren’t a commoner, if there was ever a chance that they could— But alas, last they spoke he had denounced such dalliances as fruitless. And they are, but he can’t stop himself from wanting—

Lorenz hisses. Nails bite into his skin again and Mercedes tuts. “Are you listening?”

“No,” Lorenz blurts, unsure if he speaks to her or his cock, plumping between his legs. The blindfold, the stocks are boons in this moment, hiding her expression from him and his from her. Still, he imagines the hate in her eyes, barely veiled by a placid smile, and he only grows stiffer. “No, no, no, forgive me, please—Hah!”

Mercedes’ chuckle isn’t kind. The way she tugs at the skin of his balls is worse.

He bites his lips and turns further cries into pained whimpers.

“Oh Lorenz,” sighs Mercedes, voice light. She falls into pats of his testicles, Lorenz tensing at each contact. “Even at the mercy of the commoners you dismiss, your head is too far up your own ass to see the point.”

The point? There is no point to this abuse! “I don’t—Guh.”

Mercedes gathers his sac in a hand. She clenches.

“Guh—Ah!” His hands flex against their bonds but he doesn’t his damnedest not to thrash. He sucks air in short breaths. “Don’t, oh please, don’t. Don’t don’t don’t.”

She doesn’t. Instead she whispers, “But you want me to, don’t you?” Grip still on his sac, she reaches for his cock—damp at the head, still hard—and Lorenz doesn’t swallow his moan fast enough. His voice cracks and he sounds ugly. “This wants me to at least,” she carries on, then laughs. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you think yourself unbeholden to your desires, Lorenz.”

Then she does it.

The hand on his cock is loose, the head squeezed between thumb and forefinger and nothing more. The hand on his balls is tight and starts to pull down.

A guttural yell rings out. Lorenz’s head cracks against the stocks, his body recoils and tries to twist away, but the pain pain pain and pleasure don’t yield. But they do change. In a breath Mercedes switches tactics, her nails pinpricks on his tender sac and her grip on his cockhead crushing for two, three, four pumps. Lorenz sobs, hips tilting side to side, wanting to escape but not knowing how.

Behind him, Mercedes’s voice seems distant when she says, “Know this: you are no better than any farmhand or cobbler or servant in the Goddess’ eyes. Your blood is just as any other blood, your cock just as any other cock.” She drops his testicles, but continues to stroke him, gentler now. “You cannot claim to care about commoners if you consider them less.”

She then releases him, entirely, and Lorenz’s legs sway beneath him. Drooling, Lorenz realizes he’s drooling, mouth agape, and he’s drenched with sweat. Entirely soaked through his shirt, his fringe plastered to his forehead, rivulets running down his legs, his face. But the chill that slides over him in a shiver does nothing for the way his cock and balls burn, fiery _hot_ , the pain and pleasure alternating in pulses.

He’s erect, still. And he suddenly, desperately, wishes to come.

Seteth’s voice still resonates around him. A murmur moves over the crowd, but low in deference to their Archbishop. Lorenz doesn’t hear Mercedes walk away, but the hands that clutch him next certainly aren’t hers.

And he can’t fight the _relief_.


	3. Chapter 3

Perhaps relief is the wrong word.

Relief assumes he’s pleased with the new touch that sets his skin alight, sends currents down his stomach to twist his guts into bowties. There’s definitely no relief in the roiling in his blood or the soreness in his cock and balls. His guest wastes no time in spreading his cheeks and thumbing over his hole with dry fingers and Lorenz jerks in his stocks, wrists raw against wood.

There’s a hawking spit. A fingertip presses and it _burns_. Revulsion shudders through Lorenz and he clamps down with prejudice, all arousal shriveling.

The man behind him sucks his teeth. “Of fucking course,” he mutters. Lorenz strains to identify the voice. “All that mucking about and the girl couldn’t do the one thing that matters. Isn’t that right Gloucester?”

Probing hands turn to soothing strokes down his sides. They’re big and calloused and draw his shirt up further with every pass. It’s all the more terrifying that he doesn’t know the man touching him. Lorenz bites his tongue. 

“Tell me, kid.” Just the fingertips now, tickling his hips. “Have you ever been fucked proper?”

Proper, he says, _proper_. Like any of this is proper!

The man continues: “I betchu haven’t. I bet you’ve never. I could be your first, you know. And wouldn’t you like that? Me fucking you in fronta everyone.”

“Don’t you dare,” almost bubbles out of Lorenz. He keeps his silence instead, more to hold back a gasp at the pointed grind against his thighs. The fabric of the man’s trousers is rough on his skin, but the hardness beneath that is even worse.

The man laughs, hips starting to roll, hands still moving. “Well, aren’t you a quiet one today! Not so high and mighty when you’re not atop a horse, are you? Or is it the Count can’t protect you here? Or is it…” A pause. Lorenz hates how he awaits the rest in anticipation. “Or would it be better with Daddy here, huh? So he can watch me split you open—”

“You talk too much,” hisses Lorenz, but the man persists.

“I’m sure he’d be so proud of his good boy. You’d take my cock so well for him, wouldn’t you? I bet you’d come just knowing he was watchin’.”

Lorenz reels. “You, you—! How dare you! You swine, you _bastard_ , you—” He kicks back and pride wells when he makes contact. But the man brushes off his efforts with a cackle and a swat to his ass. He pulls away only to return a moment later, skin against skin, a weight lined neatly between his cheeks. “N-No, if you do this, I’ll—Ah!"

One more open-handed smack, the slap ringing off the walls.

“You’ll what?” the man demands, affability gone. “Fight me? As if you’re not another useless, spoilt noble! If we weren’t there to support your flat ass, you’d be dead thrice over.” He scoffs. “All you do is prance around on that horse of yours and bark commands, you ugly twat.”

Oh. He does know this man, then. Not in name, maybe not in face, but they’ve fought alongside each other.

The man’s cock must not have been very hard before, Lorenz realizes, because now it’s heavy and hot and a far greater threat. Panic spikes when the fleshy head strikes his asscheek.

“Don’t—Don’t do it!” Lorenz whimpers. “I’ll scream, I swear it.”

The man snorts. “Yeesh, you didn’t give that girl this hard’ve a time, did you? And you’ve been screaming plenty and no one’s swooped in yet. This is justice, right? Scream and you’ll just ruin Old Man Seteth’s prayer. And he’s saying such a fine one now for you.”

Oh. Oh oh, he’d nearly forgotten the service. He wonders how many attentions have strayed from the Archbishop. He wonders how many eyes among them belong to other men from his battalion. What if the lot of them plan to swarm him? What if another wave of hands come to poke and prod but then go on to do far worse? Lorenz hears Seteth’s voice, low and droning, but if the prayer truly is for him, he cannot tell; he’s too caught in his despair.

“Please, don’t do it. Please don’t,” warbles Lorenz.

“Ugh, don’t start with that now,” the man says.

Another wet spit but Lorenz doesn’t feel it. What he does feel is the biting grasp the man has on his thighs and the clumsy, blunt press to his taint. It’s further south than what Lorenz fears, but the cock pushes and pushes and pushes and Lorenz jerks when the head nudges his balls.

The man swats him again. “Don’t fight me now. I’m doing you a damned favor, I am.” Lorenz balks when the man starts to thrust, slow, deliberate, unmistakable. “Just keep your legs tight and we won’t be having any problems.”

There’s sweat, there’s saliva, but the movement is in no way slick. The man’s cock drags between Lorenz’s damp thighs, skin pulling with each rock forwards and backwards.

Lorenz’s face burns. His eyes widen behind the blindfold. His tears inexplicably stop, driven away by bewilderment. “What are you—”

“Aren’t you lucky?” the man snaps, pumping faster in his irritation. “Aren’t you lucky that I’m the impatient bastard I am? I coulda took my time, fingered you open so your tight ass couldn’t snap my dick in half. I coulda fucked you all nice and good and proper for the Goddess. But I woulda lost the stiffy altogether with that sniveling.”

The man sets a firm hand on the small of Lorenz’s back, to steady him for each thrust. Grunts start from behind and Lorenz finds himself panting in sympathy. Any friction or pleasure the man feels is entirely lost on Lorenz, but the touch is so intimate, the action lusty and feral. He thrusts hard enough for Lorenz to have to right his footing and Lorenz moans, eyes squeezing shut.

Because he finds himself hard again. Properly this time with his erection risen in a hard upwards curve, the head slapping against his stomach with every thrust forward. Mercedes’ abuse is now only an ache that feels good as blood rushes south, a sensitivity that makes his cock throb.

He can’t help himself, damn it all. Touch just ignites his belly.

It doesn’t escape the man’s notice, of course. “Look at you, you slutty thing!” he coos. “It’s a damned shame I’m not inside you, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll come back later, after everyone has their chance. Let them open you and get you sloppy-slick for me. Get you begging.”

”I’m not—I would _never_ —”

Lorenz does what he absolutely shouldn’t: he imagines it.

He doesn’t know how it feels, he doesn’t know how it’s done, but he imagines it. Hands holding him down, hips pressed in close from the back, cocks— Well, cocks thrusting into him, he supposes, like the jerky, frantic way the man fucks his thighs. But that will be inside him, past the tight furl that’s only burned with pain so far.

Maybe it could be good. He cannot see how, but maybe.

“You’ll be begging for my cock then, you will,” the man grits. “That is a promise.” His voice is strangled. His grip tightens, his rhythm falters. _Oh_ , Lorenz realizes, lashes fluttering against the blindfold, _he is about to—he’s going to—_

He doesn’t feel the man come. It seems like he should, they’re so intimately affixed, but he doesn’t. But he knows the moment it happens, when the man’s thrusts stutter and end in a final slam of his hips. Even as the congregation rises in a thunder of feet and the choir belts the opening notes of the closing hymn, Lorenz can distinguish the throaty groans of a man’s pleasure.

And he moans with him, maybe louder than them all. He knows he’s in no place to make requests—the furthest he could ever be in fact—but he wonders, if he simply asks—

Then the man’s gone. No hands, no cock. Not even a parting smack or jeer.

Lorenz’s mouth cracks open to shout, but he has no name to call. No face to pick out of crowd. Even in their mere seconds parted, he can’t recall the size or shape of the hands on his ass or the cock between his thighs. As though visited by a cruel ghost. The man discards him like old bath water and tosses him to the voices of the righteous.

And the _shame,_ Goddess take him, the shame. Like being doused in icy water.

He doesn’t weep for his lost erection. He weeps for it being there in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, sorry for the lateness. I wrote like eight different versions of Claude's scene and I'm still not satisfied, but eh. Next chapter though is the scene that made me take up this prompt in the first place, so I'm excite.

Tears prove to be the best deterrent from the worst treatment. After the service, the hands return with their pinching and groping, and some exchange snide remarks about the cloying mess between his legs, but that seems to be the worst of it, for now. They poke, they laugh, and they go on their way. As far as he knows cruelties can go, this indignity is small enough to be a victory.

His heart still lurches with every touch, though, expecting a set of hands to stay. Scratching his thighs, grabbing his ass, spreading his cheeks. In the end, he’s left cold every time.

And that is a victory. Truly.

Lorenz jolts at another touch. It is gentle, barely there, but the fingers card through his sweat-dampened hair. No one, not since he was set into the pillory however many bells ago, has touched him beyond the wood clamped around his neck and wrists. Not his hair, not his brow, not his chin.

He eases.

Seteth’s hand urges his head up and something is pressed to his lips.

A waterskin.

It tips and Lorenz realizes he’s parched. Liquid flows and he guzzles without thought. The water is so, so cold as it slides down his throat, and so, so good. But nothing is more decadent than knowing that he’s been remembered, that Seteth has kept his word.

Seteth continues to stroke his hair as he drinks and Lorenz preens at the gesture. Of course, as a noble, he will see his punishment through to the end with as much—grace as he can muster. Still, perhaps Seteth witnessed what he’s endured thus far and finds his debt repaid. Perhaps being hand-fed like a child will be his final humiliation.

The waterskin pulls away and Lorenz gasps, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” water spilling down his chin. His face burns at the handkerchief that hastily pats at his mouth. “Truly. Thank you for this kindness.”

The handkerchief pauses. “I—You are welcome,” stutters Marianne.

Any words Lorenz has fizzle to nothing.

As if expecting the silence, the ever beautiful, sweet, and shy Marianne von Edmund forges on in that quiet voice of hers. “Um. I also have some bread, if you can stomach it. And berries as well—Oh! Oh.”

Lorenz doesn’t mean to cry. After spending most of the morning sniveling, it’s mad to think he still has tears to spill. But then he remembers that he’s hardly clothed and gruesome and marred by another man’s spunk, all in front of lovely, lovely Marianne. She even wiped his spittle like he was an infant. How hideous she must find him! How revolting.

He feels her draw away. “I’m sorry. The Archbishop asked this of me, b-but I could always find someone else if you would prefer…”

_Let her leave_ , he thinks. _She saw it all, she had to. She saw Mercedes touch you. She saw that man touch you. She saw everyone touch. She saw that you_ liked _it._

Maybe one the hands—pinching, stroking, scratching—had been hers. _Let her go_.

Instead he croaks, “No, no, please stay, Marianne. If you will forgive my selfishness.” He wants to hold her hands. He wants her to pet his hair. He wants her stay. He hazards a smile, a hiccup. “A friendly face is a relief. Even if I cannot see it.”

Hah, but Mercedes always looked kindly, didn’t she? Except when it came to him.

He is answered by silence. Just as the curve of his lips turns brittle and threatens to crumble, fingers brush his fringe aside and he sighs. Sweet Marianne, such a lovely, gentle soul. And here he is, convincing her to endure him as his most repulsive. He wishes he regretted that more.

“Ah, I have something else for you,” says Marianne. Again she pulls away, followed by a thunk. Lorenz flinches when something slides across his calves. “Seteth wanted you to have this as well.”

Lorenz doesn’t need to ask. His body instinctively kneels, and he shudders in relief. A stool from the pews, he supposes, the sort they use when casting their prayers to the Goddess. And isn’t that fitting?

He closes his eyes, exhales slowly. “Thank you.”

Bread tears in lieu of a response. Lorenz gladly accepts it. “It was Seteth’s direction,” Marianne says once she offers the berries. “I have done nothing worthy of your thanks.”

Lorenz makes sure he has fully chewed and swallowed, lest he embarrass himself further. “I believe Seteth would say otherwise, considering our positions. And I am grateful that you are here. This situation is unceasingly strange, and I am sure you could have declined the task, yet here you are, offering your time to me. You deserve my thanks, Marianne, if the Goddess deems it worth anything at all.”

Marianne takes one of his hands in hers. “I cannot say what She thinks, but your thanks is worth plenty. You have always been kind to me when I—well, when I have not earned it. It was only right to help you now when you need it most.”

Lorenz smiles and squeezes her hand. “You are wonderful, Marianne.”

Another piece of fresh bread is his reward. Berries pop tart and sweet in his mouth. Water follows and his toes curl as it seems to cleanse him from the inside out. And Marianne sweetly thumbs his brow.

It’s the closest to contentment he’s ever felt, he thinks.

Another bell signals the hour and Marianne offers a prayer before she leaves with the promise to return at dinner. Once she’s gone, the footsteps and chatter somehow seem farther than they did before, and, for the moment, the hands seem to have lost interest.

It will not last, Lorenz knows, but he allows himself to appreciate the moment anyway.

And he doesn’t wait long for the next.

Between services, the chapel clears of all but the monks and Lorenz finds himself adrift in the darkness, all silent beyond the shuffle of feet and the occasional prayer. So a quick, confident stride easily catches his attention, becomes the center of his world, until its path predictably ends behind him. Not close enough to feel, but close enough to know.

Lorenz urges his heart to calm. This is how it is. This is how it shall be. If he panics every time someone approaches, he won’t make it the next bell let alone to Marianne’s next visit. And he wants to see her again, even if these are the circumstances.

Still he recoils when, after a long moment, his visitor clears their throat.

“Yeesh. Here I was hoping Marianne just had a weird sense of humor.”

No. Lorenz’s teeth grit. His hands curl into fists. No, no, no.

Mercedes was bad, Marianne was worse. But this? This is something he could never, ever recover from.

Now the Goddess is just being spiteful.

“Of course.”

“Hm?”

“Of course it would be you, von Riegan,” says Lorenz. “Well, come on. Get it over with. I am sure you are pleased to have me at your mercy—”

“Whoa-ho, hold on—”

“—So do as you damn well please, I suppose,” Lorenz continues, voice rising. Pride wells in his chest as he manages to keep his head aloft, his voice steady. “I will do what is asked of me, I will endure any punishment, even if that means enduring you. My only request is that whatever you do, you make it quick for both of our sakes.”

A beat. Then Claude huffs what could be a laugh, a sigh, or a curse. Either way there is a sardonic lilt to his voice when he says, “Well, that is pretty noble of you, Lorenz, no surprise there. And hey, if I’d known you were putting out of your own volition, I would’ve left you to it. You even got to keep your shirt! Marianne clearly had me worried for nothing.”

Lorenz seethes. “I do not appreciate the tone.”

“You weren’t supposed to. It was sarcasm.” To Lorenz’s despair, Claude approaches, voice dropped to a whisper. “You are alright though, right? Marianne said you weren’t hurt.” A tentative hand comes to rest on Lorenz’s spine.

Alright, he asks. As if he isn’t bare-assed for him in a church. “And you intend to change that, I am sure,” snaps Lorenz. “Touch me if you must, but do not pretend to _care_. You came here to gloat! To take advantage! To, to—”

“Why are you even here?” Claude presses, snuffing out the beginnings of a good telling off. “I can’t believe that you would choose this over some extra stable duty.”

Lorenz flushes. “This is the punishment Seteth handed me.”

“And you, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, couldn’t talk your way out of it? Did he force you here?”

“I—” It takes a second, but his pride beats out his humiliation. “Blasphemy is an equalizer of all, Claude. This is the punishment befitting of my crime, no matter if I were a noble, commoner, or monk,” Lorenz says. “To use my noble status to minimize such a misdeed would be—”

“—Exactly the privilege a noble has earned, right?” Claude scoffs in a mocking, nasally tone. “Come on, so you let everyone have their way with you for, what, the Goddess’ sake? Are you even that devout, Lorenz?”

Lorenz’s lips press into a thin line. Once he settles his temper, he grits, “That is enough. If you came to annoy me, consider the task fulfilled. Now leave.”

“And if I don’t? Would you just let me do whatever?”

Lorenz remembers. The man’s cock slicking his thighs. Mercedes’ hands tugging his testicles taut. Seteth’s fingers hastily spearing him open. His skin prickles. His throat goes dry.

What terrible things is Claude capable of?

Lorenz closes his eyes. Exhales. Trembles.

“Yes. That is my punishment.”

Silence. After a moment, the weight, the heat of Claude’s hand disappears. There’s a beat. Another. Then Lorenz decides he’s alone.

And good riddance. Lorenz’s entire body unclenches with a blustering sigh, his chin dropping and hitting wood. Goosebumps crawl up his arms, his face burns hot with a blush. But if that’s the worst Claude leaves him with, then it’s a sign of the Goddess’ good fortune—

“A-Ah!” Lorenz practically leaps from his skin when hands ruck up his shirt and, “Wait, wait,” drag their fingers down his exposed back. Quickly, fingertips turn to fingernails and slowly stroke up his sides to his armpits. Lorenz squirms, swallows a squeak at the tickle. 

“Stop! Stop it!” Panic squeezes Lorenz’s voice to a shrill thing. A feather-light touch circles the wiry hairs at his armpits. Then fingers crook into them to tickle and Lorenz wrenches at the pillory. “Stop, stop stop!”

Behind him, a snicker breaks Claude’s silence. “Would you look at that. Lorenz, heir to the great Gloucester House, is ticklish!”

Lorenz wishes he wasn’t kneeling; it would be easier to kick the bastard. “You—You—! _Mmm_ —!” His jaw clamps shut.

Claude’s fingers skitter over his ribs in a frantic dance. Lorenz struggles to control his body and smother his laughter and, in the end, fails both. He arches. He giggles. Claude digs into his tender belly and he shudders, gasps.

But it’s when Claude lightly scratches down the backs of his thighs that Lorenz _squeals_. “Goddess!”

Claude snorts. “Careful. She might hear you.”

“I hate you. I hate you so much.”

The tickling stops. The touch does not. Lorenz bites his lip. Claude idly follows the ridges of his spine when he says, “I know you do, I know. And I’ll go away if you really want me to—”

“ _Please_.”

“—On one condition.”

Lorenz frowns. That sounds like debt. And he can think of little worse than being indebted to Claude von Riegan.

Claude continues, “I could get Teach and Marianne to put in a good word for you, if you like. Flayn too. Who knows, maybe we can get Seteth to reduce your sentence.”

Lorenz, against his better judgement, perks up. “You would do that?” _Why_ , he wonders.

“For you, the thorn in my side?” Lorenz tenses at the kiss pressed between his shoulder blades. “Sure.”

Claude pulls away then, for good. His footsteps are distinctive as he sweeps off and Lorenz waits for them to fade away before he settles back on his stool. Heart beating. Skin heated.

He shouldn’t, but he lets hope swell in his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

Lorenz, fool that he is, lets the hope take hold. He stops dreading every footstep and flinching at every voice he hears, because any could be Seteth with his freedom at hand. Even when it proves not to be him, he doesn’t allow his hope to falter. _Just one more_ , he thinks when someone grasps his hips. _After this Seteth will be here_ , he thinks when someone spreads him open.

Still there is one thing that retains its terror: every time a spit-wet finger greets him, he instinctively clenches.

“Not there,” he gasps, squirming away. He cannot stop them, he knows, but he will do his damnedest to dissuade. “Not there, please, not there.”

There are laughs, taunts. Worse, the more time passes, the more insistent they become. Just once someone presses something far blunter and hotter to his hole, only to pull away with a frustrated huff. “You’ll skin my cock raw with that,” the man mutters and later comes across the backs of Lorenz’s legs in hot spurts by his own hand.

Filthy. Repulsive. Vile.

Lorenz rides the high of it until the next set of hands finds him.

Clammy palms coax him off the stool, to his feet, and he obediently follows. His guest wastes no in time in shoving his shirt to his armpits, but after that they go still. Hesitate. This is when they should grab his hips and slap their cock on his ass. Instead Lorenz hardly feels the heat of the person hovering behind him.

They’re uncertain, he realizes. Whoever they are, they are nervous.

Lorenz… finds little comfort in that.

“Why are you scared?” he wants to shout. “What part of me can elicit any fear like this?”

Instead Lorenz simply sighs. Once the standoff goes on for too long, once he imagines Seteth standing aside until his guest has finished, he offers,” If you do not wish to touch me, don’t. I promise I will be grateful for it.”

Silence answers him.

Lorenz presses on. “I cannot see you. I do not know who you are. If you go on your way, we can leave it at that.”

Silence still. And still they are there. Lorenz resists the urge to fidget. He finds himself hyperaware of every slight movement, every brief contact, every quiet breath, but he can’t call whatever he feels fear. He’s anxious. He’s curious. He wants whoever it is to _act_ , whether it is to abuse him more or leave. He will gladly take either over this frustrating nothing.

Anticipation. Perhaps that’s the word.

“Now you just waste my time,” hisses Lorenz, panic coiling in his throat and threatening to spring. “If you’ve come to stare, certainly you’ve had your fill and—oh!” Lorenz’s eyes fly open.

Another blunt bite makes him gasp. As does the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. All trail down his back, sliding from one side of his spine to the other. At the last, teeth worry at the thin flesh at the small of his back until Lorenz cries out and nearly topples with how urgently he tries to escape that mouth.

Once they’re satisfied, his guest parts with an audible suck to the skin they’ve made tender.

Lorenz moans wordlessly.

It’s painful. It’s bewildering. It’s electrifying. By the time he recognizes the prodding hardness at his backside, he’s too caught in the frantic internal twisting of wanting and not wanting to fear it. He only whimpers when his cheeks are parted by a hand.

He asked for this. He wanted the bastard to act, and now they have. And here he is.

The pop of a cork is jarring. The smell of oil, acrid and familiar.

He should expect the nosy finger that traces his rim, yet his chest still goes cold.

“Please, you don’t have to do this.” He’s breathless, gasping. The words are harder to get out than ever before. “Please stop, _please_.”

That only earns another stomach-clenching bite.

His guest is patient otherwise, in ways Lorenz’s other visitors weren’t. Instead of pressing in right away, his guest’s greased finger massages the tight furl in slow, firm circles. Not gentle, not kind, not that that keeps the gesture from feeling good. Lorenz shudders, humiliated by how his body warms to any touch not inherently cruel.

Even so, it feels too soon when his body gives in to the curious press, and breach, of their finger.

“No, no!” It’s whispered, more in despair at his body’s eagerness than what is being done to it. Lorenz squeezes his eyes shut and braces himself for the pain to come.

But there isn’t much.

Not like Seteth’s dry fingers. Not like every subsequent probing touch since. He initially smelled the oil more than he felt it so the slow, slick descent, and subsequent retraction, is unexpectedly bearable. Lorenz bites his lip as his guest begins a stilted rhythm, working their finger in to the knuckle with every stroke. _Yes_ , infinitely strange, marginally irritating, but bearable.

Then the finger crooks.

Lorenz’s mouth drops opens. His hips buck.

That is _something_.

“Guh-Goddess,” splutters Lorenz in shame.

Behind him, his guest goes still as though surprised by the reaction themselves.

The burn of a second finger should quash any pleasure. Instead teeth sink into the meat of his ass and Lorenz yelps, unaware of the new stretch until a tongue laves over bitten flesh. Eventually he will come to realize he enjoys it, enjoys them both, the biting and the fingers. For the moment he simply allows himself to feel in quiet gasps and pants.

He wonders, not for the first time, what he must look like. He wonders if the bites will leave large, angry marks. They hurt, but he wonders if they hurt enough to leave brands.

His heart bangs against his ribcage at the thought. Is he panicking? Is he excited?

“A-Ah!” The fingers scissor. The idea of a third is outrageous, but there it is, too soon. A hand strokes down his sore back in apology when he winces. Even so his body doesn’t fight: his muscles twitch and relax to accommodate the wide, oiled spread of three fingers.

This time when the fingers crook, it’s with a searching intent. Lorenz arches, keens when what is sought is found.

“Please, please!” He can’t articulate what he’s pleading for, but finds he can’t stop himself either. “Goddess help me.”

A pause. Then the fingers leave him empty. Before Lorenz can miss them, he hears the hasty undoing of a belt, smells that familiar acridity, and feels when his guest positions themselves at his hole. They waste no time in clutching his ass in two big hands and popping the hot head of their cock past the ring of muscle. And then further.

Lorenz croaks as the world shatters beneath him. And somehow the length keeps sliding in, and in, and in for a burning, aching eternity. Until heavy balls hit his taint and he coughs out a sob, sure he can choke on the cock filling him from the inside.

A cock shouldn’t feel like its own beast, he thinks. Thick and twitching and scalding hot. Panicked, Lorenz clenches and gasps when it jolts in him like a startled animal.

Behind him, his guest gasps too and digs their thumbs into a tender part of his back, a petty revenge that promises a smattering of finger-shaped bruises if the bites leave none. When they finally withdraw in a slow pull, Lorenz whimpers as his body clings. And when they return, skin slapping, Lorenz struggles to keep from grinding back.

This should hurt more, he thinks before his mind goes fuzzy. This should feel less good.

Because it does feel good. So, _so_ good. Beyond the aching stretch, real desire stirs up in him, whipping wildly like warm storm waters. For once, pleasure feels tangible and Lorenz lets himself be rocked by the waves of it. Lets his shoulders be knocked into the pillory with every hard thrust for it. Lets himself be split open and fucked for it. And he does so with dignity, in drooling, open-mouth pants.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Lorenz breathes, unable to keep the words in. His chin is slick.

His guest doesn’t respond, never speaks. The closest Lorenz gets is the way their breaths start to catch from the exertion.

Until someone whistles and says, “There you are! Is this where you’ve been? Seriously?”

And not just anyone, Goddess help him. _Sylvain_.

Lorenz’s heart lurches into his throat. The sweat that blankets him goes cool. He almost forgets his guest until they go still as well, buried to the hilt.

“And in the last place I thought to look too.” There’s a laugh. “Hey now, you don’t have to stop for my sake, Felix.”

Oh.

“ _Shut up_ ,” hisses Felix. The swift withdrawal of his cock makes Lorenz hiss too. There’s a jangle as a belt is pulled on as hastily as it was taken off.

“Wait, where are you going? Did you—Come on, at least finish first! Felix! Felix! Fe—aaand he’s gone.”

He wouldn’t have known. If nothing was said, he wouldn’t have known. They are little more than strangers, he and Felix, but now they go to classes together, fight alongside each other on the battlefield. And now this. The same dour student who nitpicks his stances and dismisses his greetings has claimed, well, his maidenhead.

Another person to fear after this day ends.

Lorenz recoils from the thumb that finds his hole.

And here’s another. Of course Sylvain is a man to greet with his hands before his words.

“Do not touch me,” Lorenz blurts. Or at least means to. Instead Sylvain’s thumb circles the circumference and Lorenz is mystified by how loose he is, how he gapes when he clenches. In the end, it’s a disbelieving groan that spills from his throat.

Sylvain laughs, but it’s softer, a pitch Lorenz has never been the target for. “Hello to you too, Lorenz. I feel kind of bad for ruining your good time there, but…” Lorenz grunts at the dry, dry thumb that shoves in. Tests his resistance.

“I can always pick up the slack.”


	6. Chapter 6

Sylvain wastes no more time on pleasantries. He sucks his thumb clean with a pop and something heavier, hotter lands on Lorenz’s cleft, a gesture he’s become all too familiar with. He awaits the taunt that usually follows.

Instead there’s a gagging noise. “Blehk. Bitter. Felix used that sword oil of his on you, huh?”

Lorenz flushes red but bites his lip into a bloodless white line. Less arrows for Sylvain’s quiver that way.

Now that it’s mentioned, he remembers it, that sharp and sour smell that roils beneath the sweat and musk and metal of the training hall. Anywhere outside of sword maintenance and it’s as good a declaration of Felix’s arrival as a horned fanfare. And now Lorenz wears the smell too, intimately.

He doesn’t realize he’s trembling until a hand strokes down his flank like he’s a spooked horse needing to be settled. It brings no comfort, of course, just like the cock fit between his cheeks and the words Sylvain chooses to soothe him:

“Shh, don’t you worry about a thing, Lorenz, I’ll treat you so good. I always make sure even the ugly girls see a good time.”

Sylvain smacks his ass and laughs good-naturedly at the ribbing. The words rattle around Lorenz’s skull like stones.

_Ugly_.

_Girl_.

Heat flashes through Lorenz and boils his disdain for Sylvain into a proper, frothing hate. Felix is no better than any of his rapists and abusers, but his silence and fumbling hands had been a relief from the worst. An unintended kindness.

Sylvain is just a fucking bastard. One that continues to giggle at his own awful joke as he spreads Lorenz’s cheeks with his thumbs and pushes in in in with no more lubrication than what Felix left.

Lorenz fights to keep his breathing even, his body still and rigid as the dead, but there isn’t any real pain to fight against. The initial burning stretch from when Felix split him open is simply an awful memory. Here only pleasure blooms, in that strange way it does from the inside. 

And Sylvain knows.

His thumbs stretch the taut rim east and west and Sylvain hums at Lorenz’s silent wince. “Come on, Lorenz,” he coos, voice tightened but still a velvet tease. “You were singing so sweetly for Felix! All, ‘yes, yes, yes,’ and all that. You sounded so cute.”

The falsetto is entirely unnecessary. Ego sparks Lorenz’s tongue. “I thought I was ugly.”

Sylvain bottoms out then. He bears his weight down on Lorenz with a pleased sigh. “Mm, alright, maybe not where it counts. You’re a lot easier to look at when I’ve got my cock in you.” Lorenz sucks a breath when Sylvain starts a slow, rolling grind that makes his toes curl on stone. “Fuck, I’ve never been with a guy before, you know, but Felix made sure you were perfect for me, didn’t he? You’re just as soft and wet and pink as any pretty girl.”

His cock pulls back, almost out. The spongey head rubs Lorenz’s inner walls just right, just right, right _there_ , and Lorenz whimpers when he’s fucked full again. And again. And again. He restrains himself from rocking back into the assault, but not well enough.

“Do you want to be my cute girl, Lorenz? It sounds like you do.” There’s laughter in his voice, an ever-present taunt. “Your little pussy likes me well enough, I think.”

Lorenz’s teeth find his lip again. It doesn’t last.

“And here, I think this likes me too.”

Lorenz flinches. “D-Don’t—Don’t you dare!”

The pillory creaks as Sylvain uses it as leverage for his thrusts, but that’s not what spurs Lorenz to break his silence. His other hand slides down the flat planes of Lorenz’s chest, his stomach, and finds what Lorenz has been fighting his damnedest to ignore.

“Don’t touch me there! Sylvain, please—”

“ _Oof_ , I like that.” Sylvain’s calloused hand palms Lorenz’s traitor cock. “If I knew you could say my name like that, I would have fucked you sooner.”

Lorenz face grows hot. “I never would have let you,” he hisses.

“Of course you would. You would’ve begged me to.”

“Never! I would—hah— _never_ —” Lorenz gasps.

Sylvain clutches the base of his cock in a death grip. “Lorenz, you don’t get it: if I really wanted you, I would’ve had you. No questions asked.”

Lorenz can only shudder. The cold blast of fear shouldn’t make the next thrust feel so good.

Sylvain builds up a sharp rhythm, hips clapping against Lorenz’s ass. The sound rings out and echoes in circles and Lorenz imagines every monk, every knight, every person at prayer turned towards them. Watching him submit to Sylvain’s assault. Watching him arch and surrender. Said bastard never quite figures out what to do with Lorenz’s cock beyond infrequent, frantic jerks, and what Lorenz wouldn’t do to be freed, if only to ensure a dedicated grip.

How long has it been since he was this close to coming undone? Before the first bell even, before today. When is the last time he touched himself? When is the last time he allowed himself to make a mess of his sheets? _Do you even remember what you feel like in hand? Do you even know what you like?_

_When is the last time you_ came _, Lorenz?_

Sylvain’s breath catches. He chuckles. “Your cunt got tight there for a second, girlie. You close? Gonna come for me?”

Panting, Lorenz squeezes his eyes shut. He struggles to parse the words through the dazed buzzing of his brain. “Never,” he finally lies, even as his stomach tightens and his thighs part.

“I think you are,” Sylvain insists. He’s reached the point Felix had been before they were interrupted: deep strokes and fast breaths. His hips stutter, try to stop thrusting without really wanting to, just so he can circle the sticky head of Lorenz’s cock with a finger. “Look at that! You’re dripping for me, Lorenz.”

“ _No_.” He is. The grotesque squelching from the way Sylvain’s palm twists over the head is a testament to it.

“When you soil my boots with it,” murmurs Sylvain, “will you lick them clean like a good girl?”

Revulsion turns Lorenz’s stomach. How dare he? How dare he think that he could, that he would…

He imagines it: the cool stone under his knees, the smell of leather and dirt, the salt of his own spend on his tongue, Sylvain’s flushed face sneering down at him.

He would. Goddess help him, but he wishes he could.

The fight melts from his body.

“Fuck yes, that’s more like it.” Moaning, Sylvain clutches the pillory in both hands and starts to pump into him in earnest. His cock grazes that spot inside and Lorenz can’t swallow the strangled noise that ricochets up his throat. He even tilts his hips, hoping the angle hits him just right with every blow.

Sylvain grunts with each thrust. “You fucking slut. You’re red all over, did you know that? And shaking. You can’t hold anything back from a good dicking, can you? The perfect slutty little hole for my cock.”

Lorenz opens his mouth, only to close it again. There’s no saying when he went from a cute girl to a slut, because Lorenz isn’t listening and barely notices. It’s so good the pleasure is numbing. It’s so good he’s overwhelmed. But without a hand on his cock, it simply isn’t enough.

He tries again. “Sylvain.” His invocation unheard, he calls louder, “Sylvain! Sylvain, please!”

The thrusts ease. A hand drops from the pillory to the small of his back where sweat pools. “What is it, cockslut?”

He doesn’t remember. He can’t think.

“Touch me, please touch me, please,” he hears someone mewl.

A snort. “But I am touching you, aren’t I?” The thrust is enough to upset Lorenz’s footing. “Whoa, shit—”

Lorenz fuzzily registers Sylvain’s scramble to keep him upright; he notices when his cock slips out for sure. “Don’t go! Please, I’m sorry, please don’t go! I’ll be good, I’ll be such a good girl.”

Sylvain goes quiet. Lorenz panics. “I want to be good for you, Sylvain, please!” Shame heats his skin when he pleads, “Please fuck me, please make me come.”

He pants, waits. And with a shaky laugh and curse behind him, he’s rewarded. Sylvain slides back in, hard as steel, and it’s bliss.

No, better, Sylvain takes Lorenz’s cock in hand and that is truly bliss.

“Greedy little hole. Greedy little whore.” Sylvain is panting too hard to laugh; it comes out as a hysterical cackle that only seems to make him laugh harder. “Fuck, fuck, I should have fucked you ages ago. All this time I could’ve been destroying the best cunt Garreg Mach has to offer. Bless the Goddess for this gift.”

Lorenz keens and carves lines into the pillory. Come, come, he has to come! If he doesn’t come this time, he will die, he knows, he knows. Every stroke of Sylvain’s cock, every stroke on his own weeping cock, builds the pressure hotter and tighter until the heat spikes, crests, he’s there, he’s there—

He _comes_. Stomach clenching, nails breaking, thighs quaking. Ears ringing. Toes curling. He might be screaming. He can’t tell.

“Oh fuck!” With a final brutal thrust, Lorenz feels Sylvain throb inside him and twitch and twitch and twitch. He realizes he’s being _filled_ and bursts into tears. It’s perfect and he hates it.

Then it’s done.

Sylvain goes soft. Slips out in a trickle Lorenz can feel rolling down his taint. A sharp pain shoots up Lorenz’s knee when he’s dropped unceremoniously onto his stool but he doesn’t wince. For the moment, he only sits there with his chest heaving, tired and weeping. Confused.

There’s an odd detachment to Sylvain when he speaks. “Almost forgot you weren’t really a girl for a second.” He wipes his hands clean on Lorenz’s bunched shirt. “Wouldn’t you be fucking lucky if you were.”

He leaves.

Lorenz hiccups. He’s hyperaware of how Sylvain’s come drips out of him as he kneels. How when he clenches, he can’t stop the flow.

He wonders who will clean Sylvain’s boots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, it’s that one where Sylvain is terrible and gross but ends up triggering himself! 👌🏾


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, I’m literally posting this five minutes before I need to clock in to work! I’ll edit it later... maybe.
> 
> Also there are like four more scenes/chapters after this! Woo!

Lorenz… loses time. But not quite; it’s not as simple as that. He doesn’t sleep or black out, he knows that much. He’s here but he isn’t, as though he’s floating outside of his head, tethered to reality by the occasional flicker of sensation. Like being kept in stasis until he’s of use again.

The next time he is aware of anything else, he scrambles to adjust to a new breach with gritted teeth.

He can’t say how much time has passed, but the prick shoving its way in is thick as a fist and not nearly slick enough, the oil thinned and Sylvain’s spend dried to a tacky paste. Taking quick, wet breaths, Lorenz instinctively cants his hips away rom the burning stretch. It does nothing to stop the vicious plunge though: he’s split open in the end and pants raggedly.

Behind him, someone groans. “Shit, he’s _tight_. It fucking hurts.” He lays a resounding smack on Lorenz’s ass. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you, Gloucester?”

Lorenz panics. “I-I’m sorry.”

His trembling voice incites a round of laughter. So many, too many, too soon, and he wants to rip out his tongue like an errant weed. Every loosed noise now feels like he’s feeding into the punchline of some grand joke and he half-suspects Sylvain is the one telling it.

He probably sent them. Hell, he’s probably watching.

“You hear that?” the someone inside him sneers. “He’s sorry! Guess I’ll just pop my cock out and be on my way then, eh?” He strikes Lorenz’s ass again, making him flinch. “Don’t apologize, bitch. Be a better fuck.”

Lorenz flushes. The entire chapel seems to bust out in laughter. He wonders what he’s done to upset so many people.

“Will you feck this bitch already? I’m about to lose it here,” comes a new voice at Lorenz’s side.

“I’m getting to it.” The first’s voice is tight. He smacks Lorenz again and again, until his skin blazes. “You need to loosen the fuck up, you tight-assed slut! Make it good for me.”

A third, deeper voice snickers from Lorenz’s other side. “What’re you in a rush for anyway? You can’t even get it up!”

“Feck off!”

The circle laughs raucously again. Lorenz hates them. He hates their voices, their attitudes, their cruel delight in assaulting him. He hates their camaraderie. He hates that when the first starts to fuck him gingerly, in slow, shallow thrusts, the others urge him on in low tones that make Lorenz’s skin feel too small.

“Yeah, fuck that bitch!”

The first sucks a breath. “He’s so fucking tight, man. He’s gonna flay my dick.”

 _Good_ , Lorenz thinks, clenching until the gut-rending pain is too much to bear, _may my agony hurt you tenfold_. _May you suffer_.

The victory lasts until his muscles start to ease with every thrust and his body unfurls like a flower in sunlight, keen to be touched more. When Lorenz’s breaths turn hot and pleasure rises to dampen the pain, it’s just another betrayal of his body he’s too tired to fight any longer.

So he doesn’t. He adjusts his stance and relishes the new angle. If he must endure it, let it hurt less, especially since this cock is too wide, too short for him to… enjoy. In the few ways he’s learned he can. There’s no way for it to stroke that wicked spot in him he realizes and, with an unbidden shudder, his body recalls how good Sylvain felt from the moment he slid in to the awful way he worked him to frantic orgasm.

“Ooh, he likes it now, doesn’t he? Look, he’s stiff for it.”

Ah. He is.

The first laughs. “Of course he is. Fucking cockslut.”

“This isn’t for you,” Lorenz wants to snap. But he hates to admit who it is for, so he holds his tongue.

And perhaps his silence is a good thing. In what must be too soon, the man speeds up, grunting. “Look at you writhe for me, little bitch, because I’ve got the best cock, right? Right? Beg for it.”

Madly, Lorenz wants to argue, but only lets out a whimper. Let the bastard think what he wants. And let him finish, quick.

The man slaps his ass again. Lorenz wonders if he just likes the sound. “Sluts speak when spoken to, Gloucester.”

“I—” don’t know what to say, don’t want to say anything. Lorenz purses his lips. It’s difficult when he’s still so coherent and doesn’t mean it. “I-I like it,” he fumbles. “Please, I want it.”

Somehow that does it. A few quick pumps, a sharp, “ _Guh_ ,” tells Lorenz it’s over. It is… dreadfully anticlimactic. The man pulls out mid-spill to stripe Lorenz’s tender ass. Disappointing. Disgusting. Come runs down when the man steps away with a pleased sigh and Lorenz grimaces.

“Alright, who’s next, boys? Sorry to say I might’ve ruined him for you.”

Without the constant din of fucking, the sound of hands on cocks seems sudden. Terrifying. Lorenz might have counted three before, but there’s no way to really know, is there? They could be queuing all the way out the door for all he knows. Oh goddess, this could truly kill him, he realizes just as someone new gets their hands on him and sinks in with a squelch.

And Lorenz takes it with a moan, mind snuffing out. Even through a soreness that only promises to get worse, this is _better_. No stretch, just a filling-refilling glide.

Someone mutters a curse. “You fecking bastard,” they hiss, and it takes a fuzzy moment for Lorenz to realize it isn’t directed at him. “Who let you go first anyway, huh? He’s looser than granny snatch!”

That deeper voice snorts. “And we all know you’re the resident expert on granny pussy.”

“ _Oi_.”

“Be lucky he can’t snap your prick in half anymore,” the first says impatiently. “You got a problem with it, let someone else have a go.”

“Fuck that.” The thrusts turn brutal, punishing, until Lorenz’s shoulders are hitting the pillory again, but that isn’t enough to make it unpleasant. The circle laughs when he hiccups and pushes back. “That’s right, Gloucester. Fucking take it.”

He hates the sound of his name. Let them call him a bitch or a slut; he cannot exist as a Gloucester right now.

There’s a shift and a new, clothed weight on Lorenz’s sweat-damp back. Arms encircle his middle, hands link on his stomach, and the thrusts only get harder and harder until he realizes he’s being humped like a dog. It starts to hurt again but it never, ever stops being good.

Lorenz stares, unseeing behind the blindfold, when the man empties himself with a shout. He basks in the feeling of being filled, the jerking, the twitching, the warmth.

The man wipes his softening cock on Lorenz’s thigh with a shaky breath. “Shit. What a waste of time. He wasn’t even good.”

“Oh sure,” the third, and hopefully final, man says. “That’s why you lasted two minutes, right? Move over.”

He doesn’t. “What did you say?”

“Move. Don’t you have some grandmother to fuck?”

“Shut the feck up!” the second yells and it starts a scuffle.

“Gentlemen!” Authoritative. Stern. Lorenz goes still and he can tell the men around him do the same. He no longer fantasizes about rescue but hope still flutters in his chest, even though the voice belongs to a woman, not Seteth. “This is a place of worship, not the training yard. If you cannot use this space as the Goddess intended, leave. Is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” is the chastised chorus.

“Sorry, ma’am,” adds a nasally fourth voice Lorenz hasn’t heard until now. He prays it’s just one of the other three mocking her.

The monk huffs. “I expect you to be seated by the start of evening service.” After her footsteps fade, something twists in Lorenz and he almost joins the bastards in their nervous laughter. After more bells than he can keep straight bent over and abused, what did he expect? He’d do well to remember it’s too late for him; he’s soiled now.

After a moment, the third says, “So does that mean we put our snakes away or…”

“Just get on with it before she comes back.”

 _No_ , Lorenz thinks. He’s tired, he’s sore, and he doesn’t care to play this game anymore. He wants to be done. After some rearranging behind him, he braces for the impalement, but the fingers that slip into him instead are a surprise.

And a nuisance. His fingers are thick and calloused and find that spot in Lorenz with practiced strokes. White spotting his vision, Lorenz arches and squirms against the stimulation, not realizing it looks like he’s fucking himself on the digits until it’s too late.

The third’s voice is a low rumble. “Look at you, Gloucester, you sweet thing. Desperate for my cock, are you?”

Please no, please no.

“Please,” he whines.

A laugh like smoke. “No worries, I have something for you. You’ve been so good for me and my friends so far.” The fingers pull out only to be replaced by a cock that lines up at his entrance, glans catching on the swollen rim. He drags the others’ come along Lorenz’s cleft, then pushes in slow, tipping Lorenz’s hips just so. “Do you like that?”

Lorenz shakes, feverish with something that could have been desire once. His mind feels separate from his body now: his thoughts are lost somewhere in the white fog, but his cock is in the moment, aching to be touched and damp with precome at the tip. Like being torn asunder. Feeling like a particularly dull child, he manages to whimper, “No more,” to another round of laughter and cock-tugging.

The man pauses. “Hah?”

“No more! Please stop. Please, have mercy.”

Someone guffaws. “Hear that? He wants the Goddess to save him from your tiny prick,” they say. 

“Don’t stop, I want to see the bitch come,” says another someone. “Make him work for it a little.”

A grunt and Lorenz is filled completely, old spend trickling down his taint and speckling his thighs. The man holds there for a long moment until Lorenz, anxious and impatient, starts to fidget, and encourages the movement with a guiding hand on the small of Lorenz’s back.

“You want to get rid of me?” the man demands, a new edge to the otherwise mirthful voice. “Fuck yourself on my prick, Gloucester. Let everyone see you sweat like a whore.”

Lorenz suppresses a sob. He doesn’t need to see to know all eyes are on him, a pre-show to the service that must be coming soon. The thought would make him want to die before. Lost in the white noise, though, it sounds a like a challenge, a chance for him to prove himself. To say no feels like failure, not freedom.

“Okay,” he whispers, endeavoring to do his best.

After an evaluation of his available parts, Lorenz manages to work his hips and thighs in an erratic grind at best until sweat drips from his chin, but it’s hard. The angle is wrong, the position is wrong, everything’s _wrong_. No matter how he tries, he just can’t get the leverage he needs, and he exhausts quickly from trying. He’s sick of trying.

“Look at you work so hard to get me off,” comes the coo. “You should see yourself: you’re flushed all red down your back.”

But the cock that spears Lorenz still pulses with unrest. The jeers have been replaced by stroking and panting.

Let it be done. Let it be over.

When the rocking falters and the backs of Lorenz’s thighs start to cramp, he whispers, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I tried, but I can’t. Please just fuck me.” He lifts his leg, blindly sets his foot on the prayer stool. Has the man shuffle closer to stay inside. “Please just come,” he begs.

The other two laugh. The third man tuts.

“Damn whore,” he spits and he shifts to blanket Lorenz’s back much like the last bastard did. Good.

This time though, instead of clamping around Lorenz’s middle, the man’s hands drift. The first grasps his thigh and pulls his leg higher, until the joints pop, but it’s the other that punches the air from his lungs when it finds his sopping wet erection. He pinches the sensitive head and Lorenz wails at the burst of sensation.

“Oh! Oh no, no no no, please!”

The man starts to thrust, to add insult to injury. Nice and slow. “Fuck, you’re so sweet,” he breathes. His cock rubs against that spot in Lorenz until stars explode in the darkness. “Wish I had more time with you. Maybe I’ll find you after this, figure out if your mouth can take as much as your ass can.”

Someone groans. Lorenz twitches at the slap of come on his shoulder.

“You live in the noble dormitory, right? Maybe I’ll find you there.” He fucks Lorenz hard, until he arches with it. He strokes him fast, until he’s keening. “I’ll knock on your door and what will you do then?”

Lorenz shudders. Someone, somewhere is making this hitch-pitched whining.

The man groans. “I bet you’d go right to your knees, Gloucester, in the middle of the hallway. Take me to the root and choke on it until I shot down your throat. _Fuck_!”

He shouts but it’s Lorenz who starts to come with a choked gasp. His orgasm shakes him out of his skin, rattles him to his core in a rush of white. It’s too intense to be pleasurable and he goes limp.

By the time he stops shaking, he finds himself empty, his final abuser having long since finished. He tells himself it’s a blessing to be spared it. Shuffling behind him tells him that they’re still tucking themselves away.

Someone strokes a hand down his sweat-cooled back.

“You’re pretty cute, Gloucester. I kind of want to keep you,” someone says. “Would you like that? Being my little fuckhole?”

Lorenz shudders.

“Can we get a move on? There won’t be any food left.”

They leave. For the first time in a long time, Lorenz prays.


	8. Chapter 8

There comes a point, Lorenz realizes, where even trauma can become tedious.

He shudders, silent, as the latest man pulls out after offering his own to the awful mess. There is a pat to his back, maybe a murmur, and no more, just as the however many before him. That is all Lorenz asked of the Goddess in his prayers: if he must be punished, let it be simple, transactional, and impersonal. No more pinching or laughing or taunting. Certainly never his name. A fuck and nothing stranger than that.

But there are only so many times you can have a man rut and pant and come over you before the terror wears off and it just becomes a horrific chore. Lorenz can’t say for certain how many men it takes, though; he stopped counting after the fourth or fifth, if not for his own sake, than for the Lorenz that will wake up tomorrow morning to face the new day. 

Ignorance is bliss, they say. Perhaps that’s the lesson he is meant to take from this punishment, amongst others: ignorance is bliss; men are infinitely strange and reprehensible; and semen is revolting.

The latter especially. It is nothing he was conscious of before, but now the musty smell of it is unbearable. The tickle of the fresh load leaking out of him as he kneels makes him cringe. The almost gummy crust it dries too sickens him. He’s uncomfortably aware of the way the newer trails of jism creep down the backs of his thighs and the older ones pull at his skin. He hates it even more than the cocks themselves that spill it.

What he hates the most though is he barely manages to settle on his stool before another hand rests on his spine.

He shouldn’t be surprised. His body belongs to the Goddess now, and She will not let him know peace.

Briefly closing his eyes with a temper-tamping sigh, Lorenz makes to stand again.

Only, the hand gently urges him back down.

Strange. Lorenz hesitates, though not for long. His legs do ache.

The hands that touch him are oddly soft, though not entirely devoid of callouses. They are quite feminine in fact but larger and the way they skim up and down his sides is almost chaste, if anything in this moment could be called that. They lull him like that for a time, long enough for Lorenz’s mind to wander. He considers what sort of person has ended up behind him:

Not a Sylvain definitely. He can’t imagine him—or someone like him—to be this patient, even for his own game.

That rules out someone like that trio of bastards for the same reason. And they couldn’t keep from running their mouths, could they?

Maybe a Mercedes, or some other woman he has scorned in his pursuit for a proper wife. It’s strange he hasn’t encountered more women now that he considers it. Still, whatever payback they seek is pointless if they don’t reveal themselves.

A Felix then. For all he knows it could be the man himself, though why not just continue where he left off? He was hesitant at first, but that doesn’t mean he would be again.

In the end boots squeak and joints pop as the stranger finally kneels behind him. Lorenz hasn’t given much thought to his feet beyond infrequent reminders that they’re cold and sore, so the hand that gently lifts them both by the toes, soles up, is a shock. As is the subsequent wash of cool water, and the next.

For a moment there’s only the melodic sound of water dripping into a basin, then laughter bubbles out of Lorenz.

Aha, of course! An absolute lunatic, that’s who’s found him. He can’t even say which he finds stranger: the idea that someone would go out of their way to wash his feet or the fact that out of every part of him, they chose his feet to clean. Again, men are infinitely strange.

But perhaps not always reprehensible. He isn’t sickened by this stranger’s attentions. A kind touch is a kind touch and Lorenz yearns for kindness, perhaps always has. The hands that now cradle one foot, stroke a tickling path down the length, don’t make his skin crawl and the realization is divine.

It might help that, despite the circumstances, Lorenz still finds himself flattered by the gesture.

So when the stranger begins a barehanded scrub, Lorenz allows himself a sigh. He eases his shoulders. Curls his toes. Kneading in firm circles, the stranger’s fingers are almost thorough to the point of pain, starting from heel to arch to ball and working between each toe, but the dedication pleases Lorenz. The devotion. Once blood returns to the extremity, Lorenz shivers at the cold rinse and the stranger moves on to the next.

He chooses not to dwell on the brush of lips to his heel. He forgives it. Just as he forgives the open-mouthed kiss pressed to his other foot once it is also rubbed raw and tingling and clean. When it’s set down beside its twin, the fingers slide away. But the stranger does not stand.

 _What now?_ Lorenz wonders as water sloshes and the basin scrapes against stone as it is pulled aside. Then he thinks, _Ah_.

He should expect the all-too-familiar clink of a belt, the rustle of fabric. It is as inevitable as the passing of time. But the usual rise of disgust doesn’t follow. Most come, take what they want, and leave. This person instead provided a _service_. Lorenz hazards to think they’ve earned their time for the effort.

That said, this is nevertheless bizarre.

The hands return to arrange his damp feet, lifting them just so, turning them just right, pressing them together until the slopes of the arches form a diamond. The position puts pressure on Lorenz’s calves, his knees, but that’s the least of his worries. That honor belongs to the crouched body shuffling closer behind him, bent legs bracketing his feet. Closing his eyes, he waits for it, what he knows comes next.

Lorenz sucks a breath. His feet are chilled from the water, the occasion gust of air; the stranger’s cock is hot.

“ _Oh_ ,” he whispers as a blush blooms. The initial push in that opening between his feet is almost shy.

“ _Ah_ ,” he gasps when the stranger tucks their face into the backs of his thighs and sucks wetly at the skin there.

“ _Mm_ ,” he hums and a cut-off whimper echoes him. Emboldened by Lorenz’s receptive noises, his body, the stranger thrusts faster, the movement slickened by something thicker than water.

Lorenz can’t help but chuckle again. For once, the heavy panting and reluctant cries aren’t his own and he admits their desperation thrills him. He’s too aroused to claim otherwise. The stranger clutches his feet, but they don’t realize they hold harder than they need to; Lorenz flexes even his toes to tighten his grip, eager for them to come.

“You like this so much,” he wants to say to the person rutting into the oddest of places, in the oddest of ways. “Does my body really feel that good?” Even after hours of being groped and fucked, the thought never occurred to him. But those never felt like this, did they?

When his stranger comes, it’s with a buck and shudder, the strangled, “ _Goddess_ ,” wrung out into Lorenz’s skin. Lorenz catalogues what he can: the fingernails biting into his feet, thumbs digging into his heels, the weight of their cock, the splatter on his calves. The quiet, fervent way they thank him—or thank Her. In the moment it feels the same.

They thank him as they disengage. Thank him as they redo their belt. Thank him as they clear the mess they made of his calves, and further, water from cupped hands spilling down his sticky thighs. Before the shiver can come, a thin handkerchief dries him in quick strokes, ending, of course, at his toes.

It’s reverent. Lorenz feels blessed.

So when Ignatz murmurs his, “I’m sorry,” before he departs, Lorenz declares, “Thank you,” in return, because he’s already forgiven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to do something nice for the kid. And this was very nearly Bernadetta. I might still write that scene after I’m finished.


End file.
